


First Meetings

by FreakishLemon



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, The Big Bang collapsing universe timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreakishLemon/pseuds/FreakishLemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rory first met the Brigadier in a warehouse. </p>
<p>Rory first met the Brigadier when the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the petunias in the back gardens of his rather expansive mansion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at my LiveJournal on July 29th, 2010.

_Rory first met the Brigadier in a warehouse._

_It was 1968 on a world without stars and Rory had been locked in a government warehouse with nothing but the Pandorica and a deck of cards since the bombings in World War II. The man marched in like he owned the place – it occurred to Rory later that he kind of did – with his subordinates opening and closing the doors for him. The lights flickered to life for the first time in twenty three years._

 

Rory first met the Brigadier when the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the petunias in the back gardens of his rather expansive mansion. There was a lot of yelling and cane shaking and hugging, which was very confusing for Rory to watch, but the Brigadier greeted them warmly after he was done with the Doctor and invited them all in for tea.

 

_”I am Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. This is Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates.” He gestured to the officers on either side of him. Rory nodded in response to their salutes._

_The Brigadier glanced at his comrades before adding, “I’d find it rather helpful if I knew your name as well.”_

_“Right. Yeah. Sorry,” Rory flustered. His voice should have been hoarse, but it wasn’t. “I’m Rory. Rory Williams.”_

_“Pleasure. This facility…” He cast a dubious look around at the bare room. “… has come into my jurisdiction. It is protocol for my team of scientific advisors to examine the artifact. I’m sure you are aware of this, but I’d like them to get this over with as soon as possible.”_

_Rory nodded and shifted his weight awkwardly. The Brigadier looked Rory up and down - Rory could feel the other man measuring him up - and accepted a clip board from the Sergeant without looking. He flipped through the pages for a long moment before speaking again._

_“It is my understanding that you’ve been here for quite some time. You are the person they call the Lone Centurion, yes?”_

_“Yeah. But the armour got damaged in the war, so I’m just Rory again. I guess.”_

_“I see. Benton.” He turned to face the officer. “Inform Ms. Shaw that she’s free to conduct her investigations.”_

_“She won’t find anything. You can’t open it,” Rory said. The Brigadier raised an eyebrow._

_“Really? And why’s that?”_

_“It’s um… hard to say. It’s a very long story and I’m not really sure I understand it all myself, really. But I do know that you_ can’t _open it.”_

_“Indeed. Benton, inform Ms. Shaw. Yates, find a pair of capable men to relieve Mr. Williams here.” Rory blinked in surprise._

_“What?”_

_“Mr. Williams, you are coming with me. You could do with a bit of fresh air, I think, and I want to hear this story of yours.”_

 

“So, how did you two get mixed up with this troublemaker?”

“Well, that’s not very nice!” The Doctor was on the other side of the parlor, poking at shiny trinkets on a shelf that he probably shouldn’t have been touching. Some of them looked quite breakable. And expensive.

“Oh, come on, Doctor. I’ve been part of more of your mad schemes than anyone else – Don’t deny it. You told me yourself. And, frankly, I _hired_ you for those mad schemes. You _are_ a troublemaker. And stop touching everything.”

Amy laughed and Rory sipped at his tea to hide his smirk. The Doctor stood still for a moment, momentarily shocked into stillness at being scolded, but then tilted his head to ponder the Brigadier’s words.

“I suppose you have a point.”

“Of course I do. Now hush. Stop interrupting and let these young people answer the question.”

“Well,” Amy began, a pleased smile already forming on her face. Rory leaned back in his chair. She had always loved telling stories and she was a lot better at it than he was. “It began with a crack in my wall…”

 

_Rory told the Brigadier about psychic pollen and Autons and fish from space._

 

“Lizard men?”

“Yep. Weird, right?”

“Not particularly. I thought we had destroyed the Silurians?” the Brigadier turned to the Doctor, who winced guiltily. Amy pouted at the Brigadier’s lack of surprise and leaned her head onto Rory’s shoulder, an instinct learned years ago when Rory was the only one who believed her. 

“This was a different tribe,” the Doctor said. “And before you say anything else, they are of _no threat._ And anyway, they won’t be waking up again for a thousand years or so. When humanity is better prepared for interspecies diplomacy and all that.”

“So they’re peaceful, then? This tribe?”

“One of them killed me,” Rory said, shrugging with one shoulder. “But other than that, they seemed really nice.”

 

_Rory sat down in the grass for the first time in ages. The Brigadier sat down on the park bench next to him, processing Rory’s jarring and complicated and incomplete story. Rory closed his eyes and imagined he could feel the breeze. He listened to the sounds of the park around him and prayed that the Doctor could save everyone this time. When he opened his eyes again, he looked up at the Brigadier and wondered how the man’s life would have been different if the universe wasn’t ending._

_“Are you telling me,” he said after a while, “that there are lizard people living beneath Wales, Mr. Williams?”_

_“I don’t actually know if they’re there now. Er, anymore. Things are different here.”_

_“Well, they certainly sound like fiction to me.”_

 

After Amy had finished their story, the Brigadier told them about the Master and Autons and robot Yeti in the London underground.

 

_While the Brigadier was in charge of the warehouse, Rory was rarely alone. Men volunteered to stand guard with him to ask him about all the things he’d seen (and Rory was_ allowed _to talk about those things, for once). Captain Yates would bring him books to pass the time and Sergeant Benton never failed to stop in for a chat every few days._

_But the Brigadier, above everyone else, looked after him. When he couldn’t stop in, he called the warehouse almost weekly to make sure he hadn’t driven himself mad yet (or been driven mad by the excited rookies who took their turn standing guard with him). He invited Rory to officers’ dinners and Christmas parties and military stake outs. He trusted him with secret military matters he probably shouldn’t have. Rory could never put into words what being treated like a_ person _again meant to him._

 

The hours passed faster than Rory had expected. There was laughter and tales of excitement and Rory found that he was reluctant to leave when the Brigadier’s wife finally shooed them all out into the garden to leave. The Doctor promised him that he would visit again soon and the Brigadier told Rory and Amy to visit when they decided they’d had enough of this clown. Rory couldn’t help but feel immensely grateful for the invitation.

 

_“How are you today, Williams?”_

_“Same old. You?”_

_“Just old, I’m afraid. In fact,” he added before Rory could laugh at their joke, “I’m retiring soon. By the end of the month. But these blasted bureaucrats have me running ragged before they finally let me go. I may not have the time to come visit again.”_

_“Okay. I’m_ officially _jealous. You get to eat, drink, sleep,_ and _retire? I need a better job.”_

_“Now that you mention it, you do have a new job,” the Brigadier said, handing him a leaflet. It outlined the history of the Nation Museum’s newest exhibit. The Pandorica._

_Rory didn’t know what to say._

_“Years ago, you told me that the only way to save your Amy was for her – this timeline’s Amy- to touch the Pandorica. Which, I’ll have you know, I still don’t understand. But she can’t do that if the Pandorica is locked away in secret, can she?”_

_“No. No, I suppose not.”_

_“I’ve already arranged for your employment as a security guard at the museum. Benton will have a new ID and apartment arranged for you. You are to report to the head of security – Mr. Graham, I believe his name was - in two months.”_

_For once, Rory was glad that he was made of plastic. It was probably the only thing keeping him together._

 

“Come on, Ponds!”

The Doctor bounded into the TARDIS with Amy close behind him. Rory hesitated.

“You might want to head on inside, Mr. Williams.” The Brigadier nodded to the doors behind him. “They seem quite eager to be off. You wouldn’t want them to leave without you.” Rory swallowed, suddenly nervous about what he had been gearing himself up to say all afternoon.

“When I was waiting for the Doctor to come back and for Amy to wake up all those years, I met a Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He made sure everyone treated me like a human being and that hadn’t happened in a long, _long_ time. I know it wasn’t _you_ you, but it was a version of you and I never told him how much I appreciated everything he had done for me. And I can’t tell him anymore because that whole reality or whatever doesn’t exist anymore, but there’s you, so… yeah. Thank you.” He had forced this all out in one breath, flushed and embarrassed and desperately pushing down the desire to run and hide in some dark corner in the TARDIS where he would never be seen again. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking.

“Well.” The Brigadier smiled and Rory found it oddly understanding and strangely nostalgic. “It’s certainly not the oddest thing I’ve been told about myself. You’ll have to tell me more about it sometime.” 

Rory let out the breath he didn’t even know he was holding in a rush and his shoulders sagged with relief. Even if he wasn’t the same man, the Brigadier was still the same man, which Rory couldn’t quite explain to himself, but he’d given up on making sense of his life a couple millennia ago. For a brief moment, Rory saw both men in the Brigadier’s face. 

Rory took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and saluted the man. This body had never been a soldier. He expected it to feel alien and awkward, but those memories were as real as his real memories and his body didn’t seem to know the difference. 

 

“Sir.”

The TARDIS door slammed open behind him and Rory reverted back to his natural state of awkwardness, which forced the Brigadier to suppress a laugh as Rory nearly tripped over his feet turning around. Amy leaned out of the TARDIS and gave him a funny look.

“You coming or not?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, come on! Stop dawdling!” 

She grabbed his arm and hauled him stumbling into TARDIS, closing the doors behind him with a wave goodbye.

&

Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart stood his ground as the TARDIS, once again, dematerialized in a flurry of wind in front of him. Sometimes it felt like his whole life was spent watching that blue box disappear, and sometimes he couldn’t tell whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that it always showed up again. The Doctor was always changing and he never seemed to have the same assistants when he inevitably showed up again. There were days when he wondered if the Doctor had finally forgotten about him, like he must have done with countless others. They were only human after all.

But then the Doctor would find a way to remind him of exactly why he’d bother to keep him around back in the old UNIT days in the first place and it didn’t matter what face he wore. 

Funny chap, this Doctor turned out to be, but this couple seemed nice and he could tell, even just from this brief encounter - that somehow did not result in an explosion, and didn’t that make him feel old - that they were good for him. The girl was a bit flighty, but she was headstrong and would dig her heels in when the Doctor lost himself, and the boy was practical enough to ground the both of them. He’d seen worse company. 

His thoughts turned to that Rory fellow as he moved to go back inside. He was barely past the lanky gawky schoolboy stage and hopelessly head over heels for his new wife. Helplessly befuddled by the Doctor, which he completely understood - he’d spent a fair share of his adult life befuddled by the Doctor - but the boy was eager and clever and Alistair caught a glimpse of a part of him that was impossibly old when he had saluted. Intriguing.

There was more there than the boy had been saying. He’d be back one day, and Alistair was looking forward to the stories he had to tell.


End file.
